


Not If, But When

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [128]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Arranged Marriage, M/M, Mutual Pining, Season/Series 06, Self-Denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 23:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15851571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Dean and Cas are gonna get married to save the world. Oh, and one other thing.





	Not If, But When

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: Marriage (of arrangement, convenience, or necessity; accidental marriage; traditional marriage or partnership ceremony) and Roadside Motel. Prompts from this [generator](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/prompts%22).

“Explain to me again how this is gonna work.”

Castiel looked up, squinting, his nose turned in that familiar, _what the fuck_ twist. “We’ve gone over the logistics a dozen times today, Dean. What part of this arrangement is unclear?”

Dean scrubbed a hand across his face and leaned hard against the far wall. “I’m not talking about logistics, Cas. Jesus. We’re not planning a bank heist.”

“No,” Cas said. “We’re getting married.”

“See, that’s--” The heat in Dean’s face flared again, chased its way down his neck. “That’s what I mean. How in the hell is that gonna work?”

Another squint, sharper this time, like Cas was trying his damnedest to assess whether Dean had any actual sense. “We will seal ourselves together,” he said finally, "fuse your soul and my grace. There will be a short ceremony, a ritual, which Balthazar will ensure is done correctly. And then--”

“And then,” Dean said, in a big fucking hurry, “we’ll kick Rafael’s ass so far out of heaven he won’t be able to even see those pearly gates.”

“Technically, there aren’t any--”

“I know, I know, but you get what I’m saying.”

“I do, but you skipped a step.” Cas leaned back on the bed just a touch, his expression a tad more sympathetic. “Between the ceremony and the ass-kicking. Did you do that on purpose?”

Crap, Dean thought. Crap crap crap. “I, uh, well. Like you said. We’ve talked about it already.”

“No. I’ve mentioned it. You’ve brushed past it every time.” Those blue eyes were shaded now, their light almost kind. “I should have recognized it before. The subject makes you uneasy.”

“Of course it makes me uneasy!” Dean said, louder than he meant to, too loud for 11 at night in a tiny motel with tissue paper walls somewhere outside of Atlanta. “You expect me to just be blasé about this whole thing?”

“Dean,” Cas said with infinite patience, “you’ve had sex with a lot of people.”

“But I’ve never had sex with you. I’ve never even kissed you, man, and now the whole fate of the world or whatever rests on me being able to get it up for you?”

“An erection would make it easier for you to penetrate me, yes.”

“Damn it, Cas!”

Cas’s eyebrows brushed his bangs. “You _are_ unsettled by this,” Cas said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean had to turn away, had to look at anything, everything, that was not Cas’s face. “It’s not--I’m not _unsettled_ , ok. Sheesh. I’m just--it’s a lot of pressure to put on a guy, you know?”

Breath on his cheek, all of a sudden. “What is?”

Dean jumped. Dang it, Cas had done that thing, that Mary Poppins thing of being in one place and then popping up in another, and he was right up in Dean’s personal space, the way he'd done back when he hadn’t known any better, hadn’t understood why that kind of closeness made humans uneasy. But now, on the other side of the not-end of the world, of a raging civil war, of a Sam without a soul, there was no question that Cas knew exactly what he was doing, getting all up close and personal in his shirtsleeves and open collar, his wrinkled black pants and faded blue tie.

“Dean,” he said, grave again, gravel serious. “If you don’t want to do this, tell me now. You’re under no obligation. You can still walk away.”

“No obligation? How the hell do you figure that? This is my planet too, you know. I’d prefer to keep it from getting toasted in your damn family squabble.”

“We could find another way.”

“Really?” Dean said. He curled his fingers into his palms, fought the stupid roaring urge to touch. “And how’s that, do you figure? How many fucking months did it take us to find this one? How many of your soldiers or whatever had to get turned into charcoal for Balthazar to get his mitts on this ritual? You really got enough heavenly kamikazes left to try for something else?”

Cas set his jaw, pissed, and weirdly, it made Dean feel more steady, seeing Castiel angry. Angry angel he knew, angry angel he could deal with; angry angel was way less scary than a compassionate one.

“Whatever sacrifices have been made,” Cas said, steel, “were made freely and by God-given choice. I don’t appreciate you being so flip about it, about things you can’t possibly understand.”

“Which means no, huh? You don’t have anybody left in reserve. You shot your whole wad on this hairbrained bullshit, didn’t you?”

“I don’t recall you saying it was ‘hairbrained’ before.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t figure we’d get this far, huh?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I thought there was no way in hell your band of Merry Men would pull off their part, for starters. And I figured there was no way that if they did, you would actually ask me to--” Dean’s mouth went dry. “Uh, you know--to, ah--”

The air in the room went absolutely, terrifyingly still.

“Am I so odious to you?” Cas said. He was still standing too close but there was a distance now, a wide valley of fear in his eyes. “Is that what this is about?”

Shit. Dean’s heart kicked into overdrive. “I never said that.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“Odious is not the word that I’d choose, no.”

Cas’s voice was softer now, crushed with anguish. “Because I thought--I _thought_ \--that you and me, that we--”

Something in Dean turned over, shuddered, sent a spike of _please_ to every cell in his system. Fuck, he needed to hear it. He needed to hear the words said out loud, to hear them catch the walls of a dusty room, to know what they sounded like in someone else’s voice, in some place other than inside his own head. So he said:

“That we what, Cas?”

Cas looked away, seemed to make himself say: “That we love each other. Not as brothers-in-arms, or as friends, but as two beings tied together by something essential, something that defies reason or time or space.”

“Is that so.”

Cas’ eyes swung back to his, burning and unquestionably stung. “It is.”

It was cruel, Dean thought, he was being damned cruel, leaving Castiel hanging like this, but it was hard to talk, difficult to find the right words. There was so much between them that had always passed for unspoken, so much that he’d taken for granted; he was sure, in the end, when Sammy had fallen, that Cas would be there to pick Dean up, to hold him, to whisper nonsense in his ear about how everything would turn out all right. He’d been so sure.

And then Cas had just up and disappeared.

He’d been disappointed--beyond that, he’d been angry, and still, it’d taken him months to wake up and not expect to see Cas sitting beside him, perched imperious on the edge of his bed, wearing that same soft smirk, that same trenchcoat, that same air of inevitability: not a question of if, but when.

And now here he was, Cas, at last, asking for something that Dean had always been willing to give and there was no way for Dean to say thank you, for Dean to say _I love you don’t leave me I’d marry you even if it served no other purpose than binding me to you and you to me_. No way to say _I’m so fucking scared and I don’t know what to do what if I screw this up?_

So Dean didn’t say a damned word, he couldn’t; he reached out instead. Reached out and cupped Cas’s face in his hands, leaned down and pressed their foreheads together, closed his eyes.

 _This_ , he said in his head. _This_ _is all I’ve ever wanted. You_.

After a minute, he felt Cas grip his hips, those strong fingers tangle themselves in his belt, and they stood like that for a long time, holding onto each other for dear life.

“Is it ok if I kiss you?” Dean whispered, an earthquake. “I’m not going to mess anything up if I do that, right? Saving the world doesn’t depend on you being an angel virgin, does it?”

Cas laughed, a warm, little sound that touched every corner of Dean’s aching, idiot heart. “It does not. You can even fuck me if you like; it won’t affect the ritual.”

“It won’t, huh?”

Cas’s hands were restless, chasing each other up the bow of Dean’s back and the curve of his ass. “Not at all. The key is to consummate the union of our sacred selves, your soul and my--”

Dean ducked down and licked at Castiel’s mouth. “Damn, Cas,” he said, tugging the angel to him. “Can it with the dirty talk, huh? Unless you want me to come before I penetrate you.”

Castiel snorted, a snort that turned into a sigh, a sigh that fluttered into a hundred pleas, pleas that peaked into a cry that touched the very dome of the sky, and in that moment, thought Dean, it seemed that all things were possible; that even as he lost himself inside the sweet clench of Castiel’s body, he and heaven, heaven and earth, had never felt more found.

“After we’re married,” Dean said later, Cas’s head hot on his chest, his fingers thick in Castiel’s hair, “and after we save the world again, we are gonna be doing that a lot. Just so you know.”

Cas made a slow, contented sound. “We’d better. Or I might ask for a divorce."

 

**Author's Note:**

> ...can't believe it's taken almost four months for Dean/Cas to show up here. There was a time when I could write nothing but.


End file.
